


Of gorlois' inheritance

by Reyavie



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Collection of short stories, Emotional Abuse, Gen, I don't even know where this is going, Sibling Relationship, gorlois has the right to be a good person, igraine deserves happiness give me time i can do this, uther is a jackass and you do not defend him in this house, where elaine is a character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23983126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyavie/pseuds/Reyavie
Summary: Collection of short stories based on A) Gorlois is a good person; B) a Fae; C) Uther is an awful human being; D) all the children of Igraine band together due to trauma.
Kudos: 7





	1. a promise to a dying man.

**xxxXXXxxx**

(I will protect them, daddy, she says, she promised at night where no one sees. It is the only thing she has left of him, them and a promise to a dying man).  
  
Morgause is five years older than Morgan. Six than Elaine. She was an adult, grown, aware when her father is stolen from them. She is enough of his blood to want to slip into Uther’s room at night. Silent little steps onto the bed he shares which her mother, silent as she splays her fingers on his chest, silent as father’s ghost as she carves her way onto his heart.   
  
None notices. Morgause doesn’t allow them to.  
  
She is the eldest. She is the toughest. She weaves her armor of delicacy and beauty, wraps this mask tightly around her iron until none can see her shine beneath banality. Traitor’s daughter, the girl carries upon her back like a slave’s brand, pretty like a shiny bauble. Look at her, with her golden hair and dark eyes, look at her, dignified little traitor’s daughter.   
  
Look at me, Morgause orders them silently, cuttingly, with a rage that is three years old and, at the same time, old as the world beneath her feet.   
  
(And they do. Always. They do and her daddy rests easy because a child’s promise became a woman’s promise. She has nothing else left of him)  
  
“I must find a use to you.”  
  
Uther speaks these things lightly. It is his way to remind her, even in the middle of his royal room, near his royal throne, in a country that lives and bleeds for him, that she is little more than a commodity. A source of revenue. Her Mother’s get who cares not to stop him.   
  
(Your Mother died, my dear, she is the Queen. Kings and Queens, we are a number on their ledger and a tool on their hands).   
  
“The people already wonder why I kept you,” he continues. “I cannot have you wandering around without purpose.”  
  
Iron scent fills her lungs just as it slips past her throat. Swallow, she thinks, breathe, she breathes because these are wolves in a forest and she is Gorlois’s daughter, the eldest, the strongest and they will not look past her.   
  
Look at _me_ , she commands, grinding teeth as she sits straight; bleeding a perfect smile on a perfect mask.  
  
It is then (right then, when her spine feels like wood etched in stone) that someone laughs.  
  
Loud. Happy. Clear.   
  
The sound is sweet, as only childish laughter can be. It crashes upon the battleground with the warning of an unexpected gale, rolling over the sudden silence and returning as if calling all attention to her form. In her high chair, Morgan laughs out loud. Exuberant as Morgause has yet to feel for countless ages (three, only three) and her smile is brighter than the sun.   
  
“Oops. I am sorry.”  
  
All the attention is suddenly on her sister; judgement and scorn and her grin is still as wide. The girl rides their disappointment like the most competent knight, accepting every lecture with a well-practice ease and even a little glibness. When Morgause meets her eyes, there is not a trace of amusement in them.   
  
Morgan is old. Eight and old and playing for an audience.   
  
Small little fingers reach for her wrist and there is Elaine. Old Elaine and seven and reading all words no one speaks.   
  
Her eyes should be drowning in tears. If her mask was not seamless, perfect, immaculate, they would. If her little sisters did not mend any flaw in its spotless surface without her even noticing, they would.   
  
(I will protect them, daddy, she says, she promised at night where no one sees.  
  
But how was she to know all of Gorlois’ would promise him the very same?)


	2. he will be strong and mighty.

**xxxXXXxxx**

Their parents were perfect. They are shining figures on golden thrones. Golden hair and golden crowns, strong gestures that always order to be obeyed. They are rulers in every sense of the word, eyes shifting from figure to figure like cataloging every trace which is out of place.  
  
Arthur does not take long to realize there is much in their children that is out of place.  
  
(She is too defiant. She is too odd. She is too like their father. You are too small, once and future, too short, too weak.)  
  
These are the words Arthur could read before learning any letters. They are all wrong, the four children they had borne into the world; they are more than puppets and less than royalty, children, little humans breaking through assigned titles and their expectations.  
  
 _You will go,_ is the royal edict they await every day.  
  
Cruel, they are cruel, he wants to whisper, wants to yell at the four winds even as Morgause lays her hands on his shoulders and shushes him. There is a touch against his leg that speaks of Morgan and Elaine’s little finger twisted around his own. They all contain him even though he wants to break apart and cry like the child he is and cannot be. He is the Prince! (Even if he’d like to shout how their parents are wrong and cruel and _bad_ , he is the Prince!)  
  
And so, he keeps quiet as his Lord and King is speaking, detailing flaws and mistakes and faults. He watches his Lady and Queen and Mother as she looks carefully at nothing, lips pressed against the rim of a glass like ambrosia flows from it. (He does not see it is empty. It has been for quite some time; it is even cracking underneath her pressure). He watches his sisters, looking at the Royal Couple, no tears in their eyes even as he feels them trembling through the wooden table; reed bones underneath frail skin and so young they could break with the faintest gust of wind.  
  
For their parents, legacy is everything. He, with all of his seven years of life, knows their truth. What does it matter to them that they will break their children long before that legacy is made real?  
  
“I will bring you back,” he promises.  
  
His soft voice breaks through the noise and Uther stops, brow furrowing deeply as his dark eyes narrow upon his young child.  
  
“I said, I could not hear you, Father,” Arthur declares brightly as the sisters tremble as one, no fear, just surprise, maybe a little laughter? “Can you please repeat yourself?”  
  
The silence passes but the promise remains.  
  
(He will be king. He will be strong. He will be mighty, and Uther will not be there to stop him).


	3. those walls teach her darkness.

**xxxXXXxxx**

The nunnery welcomes her when she is ten. She enters through, abandons royal titles at the door and watches as little women in black keep her close. They are kind (at first). They try to be comprehending but, can you really comprehend what you have never know? When the iron burns her, when her skin looks grey in the moonlight, they lock her away and pray harder, pray louder, pray until they cannot hear her wondering what is wrong with her.   
  
There are moments when Morgan runs her fingers through her skin, around her throat and tightens _tightens tightens_ because nothing else can be as horrible, as damaging as the stone walls which shackle her, that keep her quiet and safe and _right_. Here. Where they can make of her what they want.   
  
And if they can’t, oh well, she was a good girl, wasn’t she? A bit headstrong, a little stubborn, not a proper girl like her sister. Only then would the image they see match the reality.   
  
Headstrong. (Lifeless). Broken little girl, (if only she had been better).  
  
Those walls teach her to hate. Some days there is so much hatred underneath her skin, Morgan almost frees it, allows it to run through the walls, break the floor, set fire to that odious ceiling (she could, you know? It is right there, whispering in her ears. Let me free, let me free, let me free. But why should _it_ when _she_ is not?) Those walls teach her darkness and fear, they smother her fire and there is nothing else, nothing for her, no one expecting her.   
  
It is when she reaches for Arthur’s letters, for Morgause’s words, for Elaine’s poems. Don’t die, those whisper to her.  
  
(Only she whispers back and the others see. They all see, little witch, and your sentence keeps getting longer and longer).  
  
It is not her fault, she yells at the walls. It is the blood in her veins, the magic in her limbs. It is what her father (and mother) have made of her. (And they always blame the children. They make them, force them into a mold and when they break. Oh.) But no one comes. Eventually, she even stops yelling.   
  
Stops speaking.   
  
Stops.  
  
Morgan is not surprised when one night she stares at the mirror and her hair has gone white. The first thing the world takes from children is their youth, is it not? Curls of snow tresses slide down her skin as she moves, caress her skin as they cover feverish eyes. Her fingers trail down her mirror image, lining every wrinkle she had not felt until then.   
  
The image smiles.   
  
“They cannot kill you,” the lips in the bronze surface move and hers, hers do not. “They can only wait until you do it for them.”  
  
(she thinks she has gone mad, that the words are all in her mind because her lips move not, because her fingers rest on them and they are still and silent!)  
  
“So will you?“ It continues, loud and _alive_ grinning a grin that is all of savage and beautiful and so very unlike hers. "Will you stay here and be what they want you to be? Do you even care to become it? You, who are of us?”  
  
The creature in the mirror extends her a hand and the lovely smile on her face is welcoming. “Come along, cousin. You belong to us.”  
  
Morgan looks around her. She sits in a cell, a four by four little room with stone walls. Her dresses are precisely two and her books have been stolen at the entrance. She has her sister’s letters and her sister’s poems and her brother’s assurances. She has her mother’s denial and a world who does not care to understand her. And she has this. This thing inside her flesh that she did not ask for and is unwelcome and frightening and amazing. It is her too.  
  
“I belong to me,” the little girl finally declares. “I have nothing else.”  
  
The creature (look closely, it is not her. it has thinner eyes and a skin of grey) smiles between sharp teeth and her hand does not waver.   
  
It feels warm.  
  
(In the morrow, they will write to the king. She has fled, they will suggest, she is on her way, she has drowned, she has left. No one will suggest the fae have taken her.   
  
Truth is always the most denied).


	4. fae never stay when unwelcome.

**xxxXXXxxx**

Elaine is the last. One does not keep a sharp dagger at one’s back, one does not face the perspective of death with clear eyes. One does not accept the unknown underneath one’s ceiling because that unknown will possibly destroy the whole structure with a single breath.  
  
Elaine is safe. The youngest, the steadiest, a pillar of strength in the shape and image of her mother. She is safe. She is (a) _safe_ (guard a replacement in the case Igraine falters; Uther’s eyes on her bright hair tell her so with every moment.)  
  
“Mother, have you eaten?”  
  
That part of her that is Gorlois (and Morgause and Morgan; that is the most of her and her truest self) keeps those thoughts well-hidden as she supports her mother, entwining their arms gently together before tugging her closer. The young woman smiles. A weapon like any other; it keeps her hidden and safe.  
  
“Earlier, my dear.”   
  
The hand in her arm digs against her skin while little puffs of breath fall out of cadence from the Queen’s lips. She is paler today, a little weaker, as red spots her fair skin and her voice loses some of the steadiness with the long track back to her rooms.  
  
“I am glad,” Elaine continues. “You know the healer has instructed you to eat at regular intervals.”   
  
The part of her that is her father (and her sisters and the most of her) attempts to laugh. She had sent a potential healer away, had she not? One that loved her, had she not? One who was half Fae and all healer and whose humanity would have led her to her safety, had she not? So now Igraine merely had a quack telling her to eat instead of a daughter saving her existence.   
  
“I am glad I still have you, my dear girl.”  
  
She does not, the girl’s mind sings, staring sideways at the Lady’s expression, she cannot. Elaine’s being belongs to her sisters, is part of Arthur, is still with her father. Mother gave her life, the poor dear, but life is not life without love and care. And while Elaine understands (can see the handle and leash against Igraine’s neck), this thing that Igraine does and always did with her?   
  
It is like a noblewoman reminding herself of the necklace stashed away. Pretty and safe. Always there. Constant.   
  
The Queen is lucky Elaine is left. Her sisters inherited both fire and spite and thorny kindness leaving her only indifference to offer her estranged mother.   
  
“I will leave you to rest, mother.”  
  
The Princess waits until her Queen enters the room and the door closes behind her. Until wood fills her vision. Is she sad? Is there something still inside her that feels for this woman? Is there a way to keep loving a human when the human loved only the idea of her? Does she still love her mother (or at all, really)?  
  
“Elaine.”  
  
(Can she still?)  
  
Nentres arrives silently, half cloaked by fleeting shadows in case of coming guards. No light is needed to imagine his kind smile, the warm affection in his gestures as he raises a hand towards her.“It is time to leave, my love. Will you?”  
  
That part of her (whole of her, everything she is and was and will ever be) reaches forward, entwines those fingers in hers, permanent and constant like little vines along Castle walls.  
  
Yes, she realizes. Yes, she does, she loves. Nentres and Morgan and Arthur _and and and_ (they are all part of her heart, reside within her walls and you cannot love everyone, little princess, not while they hold your wounds open not seeing past your smile).  
  
She was always going to leave.   
  
(Fae never did stay where they were unwelcome).


	5. interlude: gorlois & igraine

**xxxXXXxxx**

In the rain, his white hair shines the most precious of jewels. Water droplets gently slide down his dark skin, as if the water itself is drawn to that something that whispers underneath his skin. In the rain, Gorlois is as Fae as the first time she saw him, tricking women into the savage boughs.

He does not belong with her. He does not belong inside a stone castle with no running water underneath his feet or the gently swaying leaves over his head. He belongs to the forest. She should be but a stepping stone, something fleeting, something unnatural. He should be freer without her.

His head turns as if he finally notices and that is the only warning Igraine receives. Soon, Gorlois is moving, tugging her towards his body and far from relative protection of the wooden roof. Away from the enclosure of the castle, the rain falls upon her mercilessly, swallowing her complaint and muffling her curses. If her lord husband hears it, he makes no sign of it. His arms close around her, his lips mouthing at her neck, drinking the water from her skin.

“You are mine,” he does not talk, not with words. Instead, the sounds slip into her mind like the swinging of a bell declaring the day to begin. “I am yours.” The sentences weave into each other, they repeat, trample over each other again. And again. They whisper through her hair, they dive into her skin. They are written on her insides and seared on her lungs.

Two hands rest on her cheeks before he kisses her. Softly and sweetly, like a raindrop upon her skin.

“Do not think such stupid things, Igraine.”

_Blasted fae._

“If you wished to have your mind private, you have badly chosen your husband.”

She might be unsure once more in the morrow. It is stronger than her. He gave up immortality, home and blood for this, a young woman and a stone castle. She will fear he has given too much and some day, he will miss what he does not have anymore.

But right there, right then, the rain feels warm.


	6. interlude: what they left behind.

**xxxXXXxxx**

There was a mirror in the lake. It was an odd lake, red and still in the middle of the clearing, seemingly uninhabited by fish or frog. Branches dipped onto the still waters, their large leaves barely touching the reddish surface, just a breath away from stirring it with the movement of the wind. Nothing moved, nothing lived and people wondered what it hid in those old woods.

There was a mirror in that lake. And the men who found it, daring to cross the water’s surface to reach for the silvery item did not know it had once been prized, loved, cherished. They did not know it had been melded in twilight and painted with dew. They did not know a fairy loved his little girls and wished to protect them, so he had weaved rays of moon and blood of his and the winds and flowers into metal, giving a little bit of him to keep close, when he could no longer stay.

There was a mirror inside the lake. And those men who found it did not know its story, did not worry over taking it away. Did not see the bloody colors of the water slip into a soft blue. They did not feel something snap and break as they ripped it from the floor beneath the water and the spell words once spoke lost finally their power as a small house appeared on its shores. An old house. A stone house, just as old as the woods it had been sheltered in.

There was a mirror within the lake. The children who once owned it became women and faded, the father who made it was stolen before his years had gone by and the mother who slipped it under the water had been broken beyond repair. But the memories remain, even if there is no one to remember them.

Strain your ears, dear reader, as you trail your fingers down its surface, the delicate flowers and the gentle curves, all drawn with a careful and steady hand. There is love there, isn’t it? Can’t you hear the laughter? Can you hear him singing to the three children, speaking of a foreign land, whispering of their roots, of their history, of playing and shifting and smiling underneath the boughs?

There was a mirror. In this lake, right here. And they lived, right there, over there, where the fog meets the earth and the music still rings.


	7. part 1: fae do not kill their own.

**xxxXXXxxx**

Arthur expects a dark night; foreboding, cursing every step taking upon the path. After all, it is not every night that one attempts to enter the Otherworld. It should be foggy, a deep dark night where none would dare to venter outside the house. Perhaps rainy, lightning flashing at every moment.

Instead, stars light up the clear sky, blessing their every move. There are flowers on the few houses they ride by, songs and dances inside protected residences. Peace. The young King feels it with every step and the night rejoices with his happiness as he steps closer and closer to where he knows he will find his missing sister.

“You cannot go alone.”

Morgause still stares him down even though they are both adults, tall and queenly and so very sure of herself as she always was. Arthur can see himself a little in Elaine and, from what he remembers of Morgan, they shared eyes, the shape of their jaw, the form of their ear. Of the three children of Gorlois, Morgause is the most like her father, physically, and the king can see the man his father killed hiding in her countenance.

Especially when she is like this, arrogant and direct.

As if she knows best of all.

“You cannot get there without us,” she adds bluntly.

A pressure on his arm stops him from storming off – from yelling, from arguing as they always do – and when he looks at its owner, Elaine’s features disarm any anger. “You are of iron, Arthur,” she explains, fingers stressing against his skin. “Iron body, iron covered and iron-mind. They would come for you as a cat for a plaything. If you want to enter as you are, human, sane, you need us.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Morgause smiles once more and he scowls, like the child he once was. Their dynamic was always like this. The eldest speaking as she liked, cutting corners and never showing her whole thoughts, Elaine reading what could not be said and bluntly letting him know why he should follow and Morgan, who should be there (because when she was, Morgause had been softer, Elaine had been sweeter and there’s this whole hole where she should be where not even air can whisper through.

But that’s why they are here, isn’t it? Here, at the crossing, where the Fae dwell and where their sister is too. They fear she isn’t. Silly boy, silly girls, the Fae do not kill their own. You catch them, you teach them, you shackle them close if they stray.)

“How can we enter?”

A hand slips in between his, thin long fingers trembling lightly in his hold, for all the certainty she shows in every action. “You walk forward, little brother,” Morgause instructs simply, tugging him with her towards the dark edges of the shrubbery. “They want you to enter. They need it. But like this,” her hand is a stone vice around his skin. “You will be yourself. Test it. Can you still hear the music?”

Music? What music?

All the houses they had passed by are suddenly quiet and silent. There is no dancing. There is no fire. Arthur looks back in surprise, feeling the urge to peek through every closed window, every boarded door – god, they are boarded, locked, afraid. He cannot even discern the human presence anymore. Every brick house is dead or dying in their wake and no straining of his ears can bring them back.

The world feels dead beyond the forest they now stand in front of.

“I thought. I could hear…” Arthur swallows but his throat feels like he has gargled with sand. “That was them?” He asks, unsure of the need to lower his voice to a murmur.

Neither sister answers. Elaine shuffles closer to him, her skin not so subtly touching his. The world feels more grounded when she does so. There are beautiful lights around them still but it is the moon, not magic. Not fog. Just moonlight dancing in their air above them.

The King loses exactly one moment, wondering what he would have been had he been born as they are, part Fae, part human, always tripping over the edge of both worlds without paying attention.

(he does not understand that he is iron, that they need him as well. No Fae walks away so easily from their forests. And so he misses Morgause’s hand, tightly clasped. He misses Elaine tugging at his sleeve skittishly, trying and failing to hide the excitement her blood is humming in her veins. He does not see the half-bloods so very lost in their own skin).

“We will get her back.”

He doesn’t miss the fear in his sisters’ eyes.

“We will.”

The King is first to walk forward.


	8. part 2: there is a woman by the corner.

**xxxXXXxxx**

For the first hour, there is no path. Trees line up as far as the eye can see, leaves and branches continuously barring their way entwined in a gigantic web. He would feel a little silly, walking seemingly nowhere while holding hands with the two women like he is still a child. He would. If the night wasn’t that deep. If the trees didn’t seem to move with each step they give, opening a path in front of them and then embracing the space they have just vacated once they pass through. Fear steadily raises inside of him, especially when, out of the corner of his eye, he spies a furtive smile on Morgause’s face that she quickly hides. The way Elaine struggles to remain tied to him even though her feet which to draw her elsewhere.

What the Fae have, they wish to keep. It is quite obvious that this earth, this land they cross, considers his sisters very much its property. 

Arthur does not agree. The further they walk, the closer he draws them to himself, making sure he remembers the land where they live. The long muddy roads, the tall castles, stone and iron, everything which is stable. There is a tile at the edge of his childhood room which has never been replaced. He and Elaine broke it while playing, with the poker from the fireplace. He remembers being scared momentarily before Morgan had appeared from virtually nowhere, prodding the shattered material with a dirty nail. No one would notice it, don’t worry, she had said and there it was, a tile at the corner, broken in half and then half again that no servant had ever touched. He remembers its jangled edges, the little piece at the side which kept moving but never strayed, he remembers the color and Morgan laughing at their anxiousness before she fixed the situation. He remembers the exact pattern and shape. Every time he does so, the lights above his head shine more faintly and the world is now crossing into feels more real and less magical.

Arthur enters the clearing as himself, King Arthur, not a puppet of the fae and that, more than anything, gives him the confidence to barge his way through the small crowd of amused onlookers.

The clearing they arrive to is not especially large. Tall, yes, the moment they have entered it is as if the trees have grown, have invaded the skies and formed a dome, a Cathedral tall as he has ever seen. The half moon of flooring is paved with large stone slabs, polished up to a fine shine by a careful hand, chairs and tables are placed on its outside, heavy food and drink he has never tasted. Lights, little orbs of starlight hang in the middle of the air here and there like the most beautiful of rains.

And at the top, lays a single throne. Bronze has been melded and carved into tree roots, entwining over and over until there is a chair and there is a crowned woman upon it.

“We have visitors, my court.”

Arthur will be hard pressed to describe the Queen at a later date. If pressed, he will say she was short. Appeared to be – though at times she seemed taller than the trees above them. The same white hair and grey skin of her court, rail thin to the point where one would deem her sickly, her chin rests on an impossibly delicate hand, shimmering in the dark like made of starlight. With each movement, the surface of what he would call skin, ripples, it becomes solid before shifting once more into liquid. The creature – whoever it is – might guise herself into the form of a human, head, shoulders, arms, legs, a dark dress which is as fine as any he has seen in his court but it is not a human. That simile of a woman is a courtesy. One given by creatures which usually do not bother.

“Our cousins have returned! Welcome home!”

The creature stands from her bronze throne, opening her arms slowly in an expansive welcome. Each step she takes, Arthur wishes to draw back, draw them back behind him before reaching for a weapon he does not have. “You are to drink and feast with us this night? What a wonderful idea! What a wonderful night!”

He is nothing in this conversation. None spares him a glance. All their eyes are on Morgause and Elaine, both of which are now standing straight, waving with their free hand to one creature or another all the while fielding the attention of the queen.

“Let us dance, my court! Let us feast and dance until the sun decides to break our reverie!”

There are no instruments, no musicians or singers. But the music comes from somewhere (all around) and Arthur flinches with every note as if physically struck. Oh. Oh, no. It is real. It is the hand in his right one, Morgause’s, clenching so hard he feels his bones grinding against each other. He breathes deeper for a moment before that sister moves forward, shielding him from the Queen’s amusement.

“We are here for Morgan.”

The amusement of the court falters. The music stutters for a moment. Some exchange glances, some actually look worried. If Morgause pays them any mind, Arthur cannot read it in her countenance. Just in that hand, tightening, more and more because she is afraid, his wonderful strong sister. She is afraid.

The Queen sits once more, reclining forward while biting a nail delicately with razor sharp teeth. Her eyes are narrow, pupils dilated like a cat which has found its prey. “Morgan is mine, my dear,” she explains gently, as if her visitor is rather daft. “She wishes to be with her people. It is her birthright.” Like a wolf who will not share what belongs to it.

Her birthright is to be Princess. It is in His Court, His Castle, His Kingdom.

“Morgan is ours, Queen,” Elaine rebuts. “She should be with her family. We who are hers.”

“She has come to us.”

No, that is wrong. She was taken away. She was a child and they lied to her, he’s sure of it.

“You have stolen her from us when she was weaker! I know she is stronger! I know she can make a different choice if given the chance.”

Speak. Speak. Speak, damn you!

“She will return with us.”

Each word literally hurts as he speaks it. Acid drips down his throat, bile rises and threatens to be spat through his lips, burning every trace of flesh in between.

The Queen smiles at him (at him finally, at him solely, in a manner that makes him wish to throw up).

“Then find her then, human. Search for whomever you wish, for how long you wish. And when you fail, feel free to dance or die.”

The gentle lights that had, until that moment, done little more than hover over their heads, shine brighter, shine more strongly until he has to turn his eyes away. It is daylight in the clearing, shaking that odd world into awareness.

“Search, Boy,” the Queen says, waving at the gathered crowd. “You have little precious time, you humans.”

Arthur doesn’t acknowledge the challenge. Or the prank, he can see it from a mile away. No, he has precious little time and Morgan to find. Without waiting, he turns to the audience, releasing the hands in his with a sharp movement. They are strong. They are all strong. They can do this.

Where is she? Where?

(He was a boy when she was taken away, just a boy, a mess of reedy limbs and awkward movements, watching as his sister is taken away. She didn’t cry. He didn’t cry. Morgause and Elaine stood silent and quiet, their hands joined in the middle of them as the remaining kept on his shoulders and he can only remember those tears, not the features, not the traces).

The small crowd smiles at their discomfort, grey eyes and white hair. Short, tall, willowy, broad, plays on dark, grey, white skin. They are a crowd leached of color and given everything else. He sees fur, he sees long limbs of plant-like material, branches instead of arms, claws and teeth sharp as sin. Damn you, he curses inwardly, damn you all to all hells, damn you to the seven, damn you, damn you, damn you, may the gods take you.

“You are too kind, young King,” the Queen declares, tapping at the arm of her chair. Her amused smile makes his skin crawl and every time she moves, the little bells woven in her white hair tingle unpleasantly in the cold air. Every time, he shivers. “I think you will make a welcome addition to our court. And you, of course, our lovely cousins. We miss your father dearly.”

He wants to kill this being. He wants to wrap his hands around its pale neck and squeeze until its bones break under his strength.

“All who knew him do, Lady.”

He wants to run through the hall (run her through with a blade he does not carry) and make her confess. Where is his sister? Within whom of these faceless beings is she hiding?

Yet Elaine is there, steady, her voice wrapping around him and shackling him onto the ground. She searches still, her smile just barely there, like a disguise as strong as metal armor. How can she smile like that as the different beings dance around her, playing with her hair while hanging lights in the empty air? All the while, Morgause stands tall in the front of the Queen, _look at me_ , he hears her breathe as she protects their search, _always look at me_ , voice soft, smooth and cutting in gentle accusations.

“It is such a shame that care did not save him.”

“That does happen when wanders from home.”

There is a woman by the corner. She isn’t smiling or laughing like the others. She doesn’t show herself or gives into the game of fooling him. The woman stands alone. Silent. Her bloodless eyes move from one mortal to the other in absent curiosity but that is all she does. While the others dance and make a mockery of their despair, it is like watching the sole sane person in a ball of children.

That is why Arthur looks at her. It is why he comes closer.

“A family does not break due to distance,” Morgause continues behind him. “It does not break with dishonor. It breaks once you chose yourself over it and turn your back to which you promised to defend. And Father always did right by us.”

“Your Queen is more family than that woman who bore you, my dear.”

Her eyes are wide and thin; a clear blue that is a touch darker to be the morning sky, just a smidge away from river water. He sees the color underneath the white irises, coming and going as the waves of the sea. Taller than Elaine, he realizes, as he walks closer to her, almost as much as Morgause. There is a little brown spot marring her pale skin right underneath her right eye, isn’t there?

There are two beings in his way to her. Arthur doesn’t notice. He just pushes them aside. He pushes more, waves through the creatures like struggling through the morning tide.

Her hair is white as snow. That is not right. Her hair was black, pure deep black, curling around her ears and down her back. Her jaw is Morgause’s. Arthur doesn’t know how he missed it. He sees Elaine in the ridge of her nose and the wide of her mouth. There is something else, of course, someone else, a thousand someones he does not know hiding in her features and there is him, in the turn of her lips and the sharp finish of her eyes.

Arthur asks for no permission to grip her elbow and tug her close enough for their noses to touch. The eyes are large and round, exactly like his. Same shape, same color, same structure. She looks like Morgan was, disposed of her humanity and taken over by the fae.

But she is Morgan. She is; he is so very certain.

The King feels like crying.

“Sister!”

Her body is warm against his as he hugs her close, exhaling lowly into her white hair, closing his arms tight around her form. Oh, oh, this is relief. This is peace. True peace, not the imaginary he had felt at the entrance, not any moment passed in his father’s Castle. Her arms hang lost by her sides. He swears he can hear her gasp but it might be just his wishful thinking because, when he looks down, her tone-shifting eyes are bland and uninterested, her expression akin to a painting forever frozen in time.

“Have you found her?”

Morgan is ripped from his hold and transferred into Morgause’s and any complaint he might have is silenced because Morgause – his strong, amazing, capable sister - looks fragile. Broken. Disbelieving. Her hands – always strong, always assured and so very talented – shake on the other woman’s face, fingers trailing down the ageless skin again and again as if she wishes to memorize it with each passing.

“Oh, my Morgan.”

There are tears in her voice. Tears in her eyes. Tears sliding down her cheeks and ignored.

“Morgause, do not hog!”

The confusion is still on fae woman’s face as she finds herself hounded by three bodies. In the moment Morgause is near, the moment Elaine slips in, their embrace is a tiny group of four children, four lost souls tied together once more. They are whole! Four rivers connected, strong and fierce, they are fortresses, they are high and tall and powerful and no one can face them.

(More than that, they are iron and steel! There is little else Fae hate as much. Why do you think they steal just one? _One_ child! _One_ man! _One_ woman!)

“We have missed you, little sister.” Their words bundle together, spoken by three voices and rhyming into this unending litany. I love you, I missed you, I needed you, I need, I want, you are here, alive, well, with us. It is a confession without end, woven by male and female voices that seems to encompass all the words which should have been spoken throughout the years.

With this moment alone, they have won.


	9. part 3: the world is remade anew.

**xxxXXXxxx**

Arthur would like to believe Morgan remembers them. She does not, not exactly. She would not act so if she did; staring at each sibling in turn, searching for something familiar and the King feels her despair in the nails digging blood into his wrist. Whatever spell is woven upon her is a tapestry, covering all the thousand little moments they shared so many years before.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the half-Fae finally whispers (his cheek cradled in her fine hand, her remaining testing one of Morgause’s light curls). He cannot read her – not anymore – but he’d wager her mind is running through thoughts, one after the other, thinking seven moves ahead of him like she always had. He had had only had one until then. Find her. Now, he drowns in her presence and knows little else. “You do not belong,” her eyes narrow; she feels more real, more grounded, more her and human. “The world outside runs faster.”

“Much much faster.”

They are not alone. They are not safe.

Arthur steps back from his sisters only to finally realize that the remaining Fae have encircled the plateau with their bodies. Some have sat, some still speak with their companions, but their eyes never stray far. They are the bars of a cell which slowly tighten, and he feels like his connection to Camelot deems with every second.

In the middle, the throne still stands with its royal cargo.

The Queen’s smile is a knife against his spine.

“Do you know how long my cousin has dwelled between these trees, boy?” The crowned being looks so very amused and the shape she wears wavers underneath her distraction. Fingers sharp and thin like tree branches rest upon the arms of her chair and her hair is a thousand little serpents sliding through the cold air. “How long since I’ve taken her away from that prison you’ve all thrown her into? Two, three, ten years outside and here, here we dance for millennia, my people!”

The enclosing circle of beings cheer, swallowing his understanding with its clamor. Morgan is old, he realizes. Older than the boughs above their heads, than them, than their mother and father and Kingdom.

“Old enough to not answer to you,” the Fae completes, her voice meshing with his thoughts in an unwanted symphony.

They have abandoned her to ages without count. Alone.

His heart breaks all over again and Arthur, King, Knight, Brother, feels like crying like the children they had been.

“Tell me, my cousin. What say you?” Like a tree falling onto the ground, the Queen stands from her throne. Her arms, extended towards Morgan, are whitened branches, are brittle bone, are soft grey skin. And with her, the words resound like a shackle. _My_ cousin. Mine. My own. Morgan is an adornment to this woman, he realizes; she is the light above them, the floor beneath their feet and so is every single one of those beings around them is, leashed together and to their ruler in this parody of a feast. A never-ending feast where happiness is a mask. “What do you say to this man?”

Morgan stares at her Queen, toneless eyes slowly gaining a blue edge. She steps forward, in front of them, tall like a reed and her shadow is a cloak upon their backs keeping them from all evil. If she shakes, Arthur cannot discern it (even if she did, they trained it out of her; no emotion beyond the mask, only revelry without end and fake laughter as song and dance).

“I remember the walls,” she whispers. Low and soft, it echoes through the suddenly frozen audience. “I remember screaming against them and no one came. Except you. You were in a mirror. You told me I would be free.”

It sounds as an accusation.

“And you have been,” the queen confirms with a simile of a kind smile. “Years and years, dancing underneath the stars.”

“But to which tune?” The woman counters, gaining steel in her tone, earning it with every step forward. “It felt my own. It felt to the stars. To the moon and the trees. And all I wished were for no walls. It felt right.” Many nod as she speak, swaying softly in the breeze like branches of the trees above them. “But then, why did I leave? I remember leaving. I remember searching. Why did I search? Do you know?”

Morgan turns her back to the Queen and walks. Walks past them, walks forward, arms raised as if searching for something invisible. She walks and walks, steps further and a little more and keeps walking against something. Some mist, perhaps? Whatever it is, it keeps her walking in the same place, beneath the boughs of the tress and in the Queen’s sight.

“Tell me!” She screams, white hair in the wind (little black strands whispering in) “Tell me I haven’t lost something I can’t get back! Why do I feel like this, like I am back between walls? What is this? Why have you come, come now, come here? Why have I stopped leaving? Why!”

She is lost, lost and his throat is a vice knot made of steel.

“I want to walk away.”

The light of the stars above them no longer feels joyous.

Elaine, little Elaine, slips past him and Morgause. She spares no attention for the Queen’s gaze, doesn’t bother to check for weapons (perhaps because she trusts him to), only cares for the lady who she lost so long before.

“You see,” she declares to their lost sibling and only to her, as if nothing else stands between them. “Morgause and Arthur have both feet there. Outside. They had to or we would have faded long ago into what they wanted us to be.” Elaine’s fingers are soft and gentle on their skin but when they tug, oh, it is with the strength of the wind. “But you and I can tiptoe back and forth. All we need is iron.”

The world around them flinches. A weapon is better when no one is aware of it.

“And not all iron needs to be real,” the princess’s voice sings gently at their ears. “Be it inside, in your mind, in your veins. Be strong, be real, be conscious. Look around, look up.” They do, audience, brother, sisters and only the Queen does not, her lovely smile caught in a snarl. “It is a forest, is it not? Not a cathedral. Not a Palace. Just the trees and the boughs. I can hear the leaves and there is no song which is more beautiful. Look, Morgan. There is the sky.”

Morgan’s head tilts up, her eyes (blue blue _blue_ ) searching through the darkness for the starlight.

“Look down, sister. We are here.”

And she does. At Elaine’s expression, mischievous as she always was (before; when a child; when with her). And.

The lights go out.

The forest sounds drive through, they silence the music and the crowd.

They stand in an empty clearing, all filled with the creatures whose magic swim in his sisters’ veins but the magic has run out. Has died like a blade has been driven into another’s skin. The Queen is still the Queen, still otherworldly and frightening but there is no light upon her skin, no amusement in her gaze. No. He would dare to think her angry as she stares upon the small group. Like a child throwing a tantrum when a favored toy is taken away.

“Morgan. You know what you are returning to.”

The half does not spare her a glance. Her gaze is upon her wrist, upon a hand that reaches into the air to grasp something invisible hanging between her and the queen. It cuts her skin. Blood drips. Slowly. Sluggishly.

There is a dent on her wrist. Tight like a vice.

“You knew I had never come to stay,” Morgan whispers slowly, every word dragged out of with tooth and nail. “There’s a part of me that does not belong here. It is why you weaved this, wasn’t it?” The blood dips onto the ground and each drop sounds like a bell. An harp string plucked by a talented musician.

Anger colors the Queen’s features. Sharp teeth slip past her façade and drag across a bloodied lip.

“I know your name, Morgan.”

“I know yours.” The crowd whispers, oh, oh, that is a true threat. Does she really know it? When has she learned? Will she share? Arthur moves to the side, a tall column of iron and man covering her back from any attack that is to come. If Morgan notices, she makes no mention of it. Her smile finally appears, and it is familiar as the air they breathe – Morgause’s at her sharpest. “You should be happy I am leaving, your Majesty,” the half continues. “Why, one might once see me crowned in flowers and oak.”

Her hand pushes at the invisible thread. Strongly, ripping apart a bandage that is no longer needed.

Snap.

The crash of broken glass in an empty room, it crashes through the air and brings the world to its heel. And the next thing Arthur knows, they alone stand in an empty clearing. The trees whisper above their heads, there is a little moonlight flitting through the leaves and branches.

In front of him is Morgan. Black haired, the woman stands straight, more solid, with traces of a healthy tan on smooth skin and tall and thin like a reed. Her clothes are old, made for someone much smaller and barely covering her form. Her eyes – blue, blue, blue as a still lake, blue as the night sky, blue as his – waver nervously for the very first time as they rest on the small group of siblings.

“Thank you for coming for me,” she whispers. The child that had been abandoned so long before. “Even if I don’t remember.”

Arthur knows exactly what to say.

“Thank you for believing we would.”

Morgan smiles. It is not wide. It is small and fearful and pure.

When they hug, all four, all together, the world is remade anew. 


	10. and poison shall be your reward.

**xxxXXXxxx**

When the word comes, it is like she is finally awake in her own body. No longer a passenger, no longer afraid or trapped. Igraine lowers her chin slowly, dark eyes soft upon the messenger who trembles beneath their thrones. At her side, Uther’s body stutters as if it too knows she is listening.

“What have you said?” The Queen asks, authoritatively even. An old authority, of the Duchess she had been, of the free woman Tintagel had raised. When was the last time a man looked upon her in fear? She cannot know; she cannot remember.

“Lady Elaine is not to be found, your Majesty.” The boy whispers. "We have found a letter in her chambers. It is for you.”

There is a small pause as the messenger looks at her, at her whole attention which he knows to be rare but not frightening, not until _that_ moment. He cannot spare a glance at the King before he places the frail paper onto her extended hand. Something in her does not allow it.

(Could it be magic? Could it be something of Gorlois’ left to his widow? Who would ask in the vicinity of Uther, as his gaze thunders and threatens and rejoices for once, as he sees his Queen come to life! Oh, as she _was_. Older but alive as she was when he first stole her!)

Igraine does not need to read the message because she knows exactly what it says. She knows them, after all. She birthed all of them, saw them walk first, develop first. She loved them first, fiercely, with all the strength her body and life could muster. She knew what each would do even before they thought of it. Morgause would die avenging her father while Morgan would die becoming Him. Elaine? She would wither away forced into her mother’s shell. And her Arthur, her kind boy would crumble in his father’s shoes.

So away she pushed them, one after the other, away where they wouldn’t need or want her, away from this Court which meant nothing and the man who had trampled all of them for a woman he did not deserve. What did it matter if they hated her? Not to her. Not as long as they were safe, happy in some manner that did not include her. _Oh_. And she had done it! Day after day after year after century, while she ignored pleading gazes and trembling hands. She had done it!

“Igraine?”

They are alone. Uther stands beneath her throne and never has she seen him like this, literally below her, hopeful that he will be chosen now that the last of her children has left and she has nothing but herself.

But herself is all she needs.

“I have done it,” she declares and there is strength in that declaration. “I have done it, my love,” words spoken to the air, to wherever her husband was sent after this creature at her feet destroyed them. If she opens her arms just so, she can almost feel him. “Our children are safe. Our children are away and he cannot harm them anymore. We are free.” There is _her_ in those words, Igraine, Lady and Duchess, Mother and Wife; there is her finally! Not the puppet Uther had dangled from countless strings while holding her children beneath an axe’s blade!

And she sees exactly when he understands this; that something is very very wrong. His lips part as if to inquire over her sudden rebirth but this is not his plot and there is no part left for him to play in her life. 

“No,” Igraine interrupts swiftly, raising the message forbiddingly as she stands. “Today, you do not speak! Not Today! Not on my day of victory!” Even the crown feels hers, finally, for once and her smile is brilliant as it has not been for years without count.

Blind Uther seems so confused, the poor old man. She has gone mad, finally and his thoughts play like shadows upon his disgusting face. But why should she care of his thoughts? Of his emotions? Did hers matter, at any point? Did she matter, other than to become what he wanted of her?

“You cannot harm me anymore, Uther,” she smiles down at him, a cold smile Morgause had always wore and he had never recognized until that very moment. “Last night was the last night you have ever touched me. Do so again and I will jump out of the closest window. Force me and I will bite my own tongue. Come near me and I will have the entire Kingdom wondering why their silent, kind, gentle Queen was driven mad by her own husband. I will have your reputation in tatters, even more than you have already sullied it. Because today, I have lost the very last you could steal from me.”

Uther had thought her an ornament. A beautiful mare that Gorlois had caught unaware. He had never seen her as she was, the girl who had ran after a Fae, the woman who had ensnared him, the ruler who had kept all of hers intact and safe until that wretched wizard had deemed her a thing to be used. He had thought she would forget.

And like her children, Igraine knew how to wait.

“Enjoy your prize, your Majesty,” she whispered. “I doubt it will last long.”


End file.
